Perhaps anticipating accusations of hypocrisy when he joined a 2-1 decision that concluded a defendant wasn’t entitled to relief from a mandatory minimum 10-year prison sentence because Congress used the word “and” to mean “or” in a reform law’s “safety valve” provision, a circuit judge who described himself as “an ardent textualist” added a concurring opinion on why “hyper-literalism is bad.”
By Steven P. Garmisa